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Liberty
Latin liber "free, unrestricted, unimpeded; unbridled, unchecked, licentious." Liberty is a multidimensional idea and reality, verily contested. Liberty is said to be the result of liberation or of powers (even "rights" or "privileges"). A state may be ruled by (measures of) correction; weapons of war may be used with crafty dexterity; (but) the kingdom is made one’s own (only) by freedom from action and purpose. [ Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching ] Roman law also embraced certain limited forms of liberty, even under the rule of the Roman Emperors. These liberties were accorded most distinguishedly to Roman citizens. The Roman idea of liberty (libertas) was a civic right acquired under positive law; namely, it was a constituent of the membership of the civic body (citizenship). Many of the liberties enjoyed under Roman law endured through the Middle Ages, but were enjoyed solely by the nobility, rarely by "the common man." The idea of inalienable and universal liberties had to wait until the Age of Enlightenment. To not be oppressed. Liberty or freedom (eleutheria) in ancient Greece denoted the status of the free man and woman as opposed to that of the slave. The division between free persons and slaves was deemed to be a social and natural institution. Free status was identified by a set of various rights and privileges. Hence, liberty was exclusive and could not be shared by every individual. Reportedly, the Chinese language did not know a word for "liberty" before the nineteenth century. The modern translation of "liberty," ziyou (meaning, literally, self-determination), had to be coined in response to the reception of Western ideas. The closest classical term, ziran (meaning, literally, "the natural"), denoted a Taoist sense of harmony with nature. This is not to say that the idea of personal freedom was totally foreign to classical Chinese philosophy. Confucian belief in human perfectibility, however, concerned interior spiritual freedom, differing from the Western political and social concept. Likewise, freedom as a right was not conceptualized until the nineteenth century. Kang Youmai (1858–1927) was one of the first Chinese intellectuals who introduced the Protestant idea of free will. His Complete Book of Substantial Principles and General Laws (written between 1885 and 1887) described human beings as owners of the "right of autonomy" (zizhu zhi quan), thereby adopting the language of rights. Liberty in the sense of spiritual liberation from the cycle of birth and death was a key idea in Indian thought. The liberty of the individual in civil or political society was foreign to classical Indian political thought. The equivalent to the idea of civil rights can be found in the ancient literature of Smritis, but it differed significantly from the Western idea in that the former was considered to belong exclusively to the upper classes (especially the order of the Brahmanas). The idea of liberty came to the fore of Indian political thinking with the encounter with the modern West, epitomized by the intellectual contributions of Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) and Manabandra Nath Roy (1887–1954). http://science.jrank.org/pages/7822/Liberty.html